Prayer For The Nation

This past week has been a time of heartbreak and tragedy once again for our nation. Another senseless school shooting has taken the lives of four people and forever altered the lives of many more. This time the shooting happened less than an hour away from my home here in Georgia. My spirit has been grieved by the effects of this shooting (lives cut short, trauma to students/teachers and community, legal actions against the shooter and his father). And I have prayed for those directly affected as well as for our nation. We have become a nation where public places are not safe and are increasingly subject to senseless gun violence. And we don’t seem to be able to summon the will to do anything meaningful about it. In 1 Kings 8:22-24; 37-39; 46, 48-50, King Solomon prays to God on behalf of the nation of Israel. The occasion is the dedication of the Temple that Solomon has just completed. As the leaders and elders of the nation looked on, Solomon prayed that the Temple would be a place from which God would hear His people’s wholehearted prayers and pleas in the time of their affliction and out of His great merciful and loyal love for them, forgive their sins and disobedience. I pray that we would come before God’s altar and pray to Him with our whole heart, and that He would hear our prayers, forgive our sins and heal our land. Amen

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven and said: “LORD, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—as it is today.  (1 Kings 8:22-24) King Solomon is seen here praying to God at the dedication of the Temple that he has had built.  The Temple was his father David’s idea, for the purpose of permanently housing the Ark of the Covenant, and taking it from its previous home in the movable Tabernacle structure.  The dedication of the Temple was a national ceremonial event.  Solomon’s prayer to God was made publicly in front of the elders and leaders of Israel.  Solomon began by acknowledging God’s unparalleled greatness and His hesed (faithful, loyal, merciful) love toward His people.  Solomon also acknowledged God’s fulfillment of the promise He made to David regarding the Temple.  

“When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of the afflictions of their own hearts, and spreading out their hands toward this temple— then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know every human heart),  (1 Kings 8:37-39) Solomon identified various curses that God had warned that He would bring against Israel if they failed to obey Him (see Deuteronomy 28:15-68). He prayed that when the people were afflicted by these curses, that God would hear His people’s wholehearted prayers and pleas of forgiveness made at the Temple (their meeting place with God) and act to forgive what they had done in disobedience. 

“When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin —and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near

and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy;  (1 Kings 8:46, 48-50) Solomon acknowledged that people would undoubtedly sin against God.  Not only did Solomon pray that the people’s prayers at the Temple would be heard by God, but he asked God to hear prayers made from foreign lands made by those who suffered being taken captive by enemy forces that God may bring against Israel.  He asked that God would show His people mercy and forgiveness and make their captors show mercy to them even in captivity.

King Solomon is regarded in the Bible as having great wisdom given to him by God. In his wisdom, Solomon knew that it was inevitable that Israel would make mistakes and would at times engage in sin and disobedience to God (“for there is no one who does not sin”). He knew that such behavior on the part of the nation of Israel would invoke the curses that God had warned Israel about. Solomon’s prayer to God in the presence of the leaders of Israel was that God would hear the wholehearted repentant prayers and pleas of His people in their affliction in those times when God chastised them. The key catalyst for God’s forgiving and healing action, was real repentance on the part of His people. As Solomon prayed to God, it was purposeful that Israel’s leaders and elders were present. They were to avoid leading the nation into disobedience and sin, and they were called by God to lead the nation in repentance when calamity struck because of their trespasses against God. Repentance is still the requirement for God’s forgiveness and healing. When we come back to God and seek Him with our whole heart, He is faithful to forgive us. Solomon prayed for his nation, that they would come to God with a repentant heart when they messed up and that God would hear their prayers and be merciful to them. Throughout our land, we too could certainly use some mercy, forgiveness and healing from God. Let us start with a repentant heart…. and let us pray for ourselves and for this nation. Amen.

Blessings, Rev. Glenn